


stolen basses and stolen kisses

by sometimeswritingsometimesdying



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Boys Kissing, Gay, Idiots in Love, Kissing, M/M, Partners in Crime, Pre-Season/Series 01, This is very very gay, alex and willie break rules, also they get stuck in a closet together lol, luke is in loveeeeeeeee, stealing stuff, technically, theyre cuteeeee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:47:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27068878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sometimeswritingsometimesdying/pseuds/sometimeswritingsometimesdying
Summary: the music program is ending due to lack of funding, which means reggie won't be able to borrow the school's bass to play with in the band. so he devises a plan.(and luke decides to go along with it, because reggie's his best friend, and definitely, a hundred percent, not for any other reason)
Relationships: Alex/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Luke Patterson/Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), but its kinda minor
Comments: 14
Kudos: 290





	stolen basses and stolen kisses

**Author's Note:**

> whooo aight yall. finally finished writing this !! this is my first fic for this fandom but GOD do i adore this show and do i adore the characters even more so  
> also some notes i should mention.  
> \- bobby isn't in this bc i kinda forgot about him and i also think he would join a little later into the band  
> \- reggie is trans and italian. no it has nothing to do with the plot, but i'm trans and italian and i like to project onto my characters. like our great comedian mulaney said, it doesn't matter at all to the story, but it's important to me that you know that  
> -idk how to write kissing so sorry if it's not the best :(  
> -also !! i'm sorry if this is ooc !!! i'll be working on that dw  
> and yeah thats it ig  
> enjoy :D

**Friday, June 16, 1993 (17:34 PM)**

Reggie didn’t come home every day to the most wealthy family in the city. Although his parents never mentioned it, he could hear them fight about the bills when they thought he was asleep and he could see his father’s tired eyes raking yet another letter from the bank. Over the years, he’d gotten used to too-small shoes that made his feet hurt and old hand-me-downs that scratched his arms uncomfortably.

Which meant there was no way he was gonna be able to buy a bass. (he’d only started because of the music program at school, which apparently was ending at the end of the school year. meaning he wouldn’t be able to use the school’s instruments anymore. Which meant no more sunset curve.)

He couldn’t give up on music. So he had devised a plan.

Now he just had to get his friends on board with it. Or rather, Luke on board with it. No way Alex was going to agree.

“Luke,” the man in question turned around to face him. “We need to talk.”

Luke’s brow furrowed, but he nodded and sat down on the couch they had in their studio.

It wasn’t exactly a studio, more like an abandoned house they had found where they could practice without anyone interrupting. Was it possibly illegal to do so? Perhaps. 

He supposed they liked living on the edge (or whatever it had been that Luke had described it as, and as Alex had very clearly stated he did not like to live as).

“Sure man, what’s up?” Reggie took a deep breath. 

“You know how the music program is ending this year?” Luke nodded. “I um,” Reggie swallowed nervously. “If it ends, I won’t be able to play bass anymore since I’ve been borrowing the one from school.” 

Luke looked at him, and his mouth opened in a silent ‘oh’.

“What are we-” Luke sighed letting his head fall back against the back of the couch. “What are we gonna do?” he tilted his head to look at the other boy, who was nervously fidgeting with the edge of his leather jacket.

Slowly, Reggie lifted his eyes to meet his.

“I might have an- um,” he tilted his head. “I have a plan.”

“Which is?”

“Ah, well-” Reggie stopped as Alex walked into the studio. The three of them exchanged scared (in the case of Reggie) and confused stares (in the case of his other two friends). Alex looked back and forth between the two, a half eating apple in his hand.

“What?” Reggie nervously smiled at him.

“Nothing! Nothing at all,” Reggie scrambled to stand in front of him, placing his hands on Alex’s shoulders. His friend’s confused expression turned into a concerned one. “Everything's a-okay! Just… talking! With our friend over here! Absolutely nothing wrong!”

Alex raised an eyebrow but ended up deciding to let it go, shaking his head and walking over to the couch.

“Well,” He said, sitting down. They all flinched as the springs let out an unholy screech. “I should probably mention I’ll be out tonight and I have to leave practice a bit early.”

“Oh,” Reggie said, eyes wide. “Why?”

Alex looked down at the apple in his hand. “I um,” he cleared his throat. “I’m gonna go hang out with that boy I told you guys about.”

“The skater?” Alex nodded and squeaked indignantly as Luke messed up his blonde hair. “Ooooh, our good old’ Alex is finally getting some action huh-”

“Oh for god’s sake-” Alex took a pillow from his side and threw it at Luke who was giggling along with Reggie. “Shut up, would you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking abo-hmfp.” Luke sputtered as a second pillow hit his face.

“Man down!” Reggie exclaimed from the other side of the room. They started laughing, and Reggie knew he had to get Luke onboard with his plan.

No way he was giving up playing in the band.

-

**Saturday, June 17, 1993 (1:06 AM)**

Reggie was not very good at coming up with good ideas.  _ However _ \- because there is always a  _ however _ , with Reggie- he was  _ very _ good at coming up with bad ideas.

And Luke was very good at always being on board with his bad ideas.

He was starting to regret his proposition.

“I’m starting to think this wasn’t such a good idea,” Reggie whispered from behind Luke. Luke turned his head to look at him and raised an eyebrow.

“It was your idea,” he turned back around looking around the corner for any sign of the night guards. “And, plus, it’s not like you have much of a choice. Either you find a bass to play with or we’ll have to give up on the band.”

“You could always find another bass player,” Reggie mumbled. Luke turned back around, shocked.

“No way man, you’re the best there is,” Reggie looked down at his feet, a smile tinting his face. “And you’re our best friend,” Luke added, and he messed up Reggie's dark hair in a fond manner, seeing the other boy blush and his smile grow.

If he had to be completely honest, Luke found Reggie’s smile to be the cutest thing in the world. Not that he’d ever get to know if all went to plan. 

And the plan was, well, not the best. It was quite flawed, as flawed as “just wait until this crush fades away, especially since you  _ aren’t gay Luke what the fuck are you on about?” _ could be.

God, there were far too many plans going on at once.

He turned back around, realizing he had been staring at his friend for much too long, and popped his head around the corner to look into the empty, darkened hallway. He signaled to Reggie it was free to go, and they hurried all the way to the band room.

The plan was simple, as Reggie had explained (and as Luke had revised), divided into a few a different key points:

  1. Get into the school during after-hours- check, done, the cleaning ladies always kept the bathroom windows open for a few hours after closing to let the air in. it made, frankly, very little sense to him, but, hey, he wasn’t going to complain.
  2. Second, make their way into the band room; also check, done.
  3. Third, find Reggie’s bass (or, well, not _Reggie's_ bass, it wasn’t his _yet_ , but rather the one he would borrow for practice every time) and pack it.
  4. And, last but not least, somehow get out of the school without anyone catching them.
  5. ~~_And maybe confess to Reggie about his feelings?_~~
  6. ~~_Realize there are no feelings to confess_~~
  7. ~~_Notice how pretty Reggie looks when he’s blushing_~~
  8. ~~_Fuck_~~
  9. ~~_Is this even chronological anymore?_~~



Well, steps one and two of the plan had already been completed and, as the moonlight caught onto the red paint of Reggie’s bass, step three seemed closer and closer to being done as well.

The room was dark and hard to navigate at first, but his friend seemed to manage well enough for Luke to stay by the door as watchout.

Quietly, Luke waited by the door as Reggie took the bass from its stand and placed it in its bag. 

From his spot, Luke could see Reggie's face illuminated only by the moonlight streaming in through the windows.

He looked… pretty. Like,  _ really _ pretty. But, then again, he always did, didn't he?

(and Luke  _ knew _ . He’d known for much longer than he wanted to admit. But it was  _ embarrassing _ , and not only for the fact that he was, as far as he knew, straight. He and Reggie had known each other since they were  _ seven _ and Luke was  _ not _ going to be the one crushing on his childhood best friend and- oh fuck this)

Luke played with the beanie in his hands nervously. He  _ knew _ he didn’t only like girls (and he didn’t only  _ know _ he had tried it out as well- and he’d liked it. Which had  _ terrified  _ him at the time- and then Alex had told them, and everything seemed a lot less hard to deal with)

(heh. hard.)

Luke bit the inside of his cheek and shook his head, leaning on the doorframe of the music room. Casually, his eyes fell to the dark corridor he was facing

Oh.  _ Oh _ .

Oh  _ fuck _ .

Luke’s eyes went wide as he saw a flashlight poke its way around the corner of the corridor. He scrambles to Reggie, who lets out a confused noise as Luke pushes him all the way over into the instrument cabinet in the corner of the classroom.

“Luke what-” Luke shushed him and placed a finger to his lips as he closed the closet door behind them. He turned back around to find Reggie staring dumbly at the finger on his lips. He shook his head in disbelief, before indicating him to stay quiet.

“ _ There’s someone outside _ ,” he whispered. “ _ I saw them turn the corner with a flashlight _ .”

Reggie ‘ah’-ed and nodded.

Pretty soon, Luke realized he had not made a smart decision in locking them in the instrument cabinet. It was small and cramped, and Luke and Reggie were far too close for comfort (or, rather, for Luke to be comfortable he wouldn’t do something that would make him cringe into the next life). If Reggie felt any discomfort, however, he didn’t show it.

Luke supposed that was reassuring, that Reggie was so… okay, with  _ things _ . Like the fact that they were close enough to feel each other’s breath on their faces, and that Luke’s cheeks were  _ definitely _ tinted red (but he thought he saw Reggie’s blush spreading on his cheeks as well) and that Reggie was actually leaning forward and Luke found himself mirroring him and-

Oh.  _ oh. _

Reggie’s lips were nice-  _ incredibly _ nice. The kiss itself was sloppy, noses bumping at first and lips fitting together clumsily, but it was soft and sweet and the way Reggie's hand had found his way onto Luke's cheek made him feel all warm and nice. The kiss was short (too short for his liking) and chaste (too chaste for his liking as well) but Reggie’s resulting grin made him feel all sorts of things because he was so  _ goddamn cute _ and  _ sweet _ because of  _ course, _ he was fucking  _ Reggie _ and-

He leaned forward again, catching Reggie’s lips in another kiss. The second one was longer, and his hands didn’t clam up at his sides. Instead, he reached out and placed a hand on the back of Reggie's head to lightly play with the hair at the nape of his neck.

The cabinet felt all too hot and cramped for this and Reggie sighed into the kiss, tilting his head subconsciously to deepen it further ( _ or was it subconsciously? Luke hadn’t exactly thought about whether Reggie was a good kisser or not  _ ~~_ well, actually, he had, but no one needed to know right then and there _ ~~ ).

Suddenly a laugh was heard from the music room and the two fifteen-year-olds broke apart in a frenzy. 

“Dude I swear to god if you get us in trouble- we really shouldn’t be here you know that?”

Wait. Luke knew that voice.

“Oh c’mon hotdog, I thought you enjoyed breaking rules with me?”

Hotdog? What kind of nickname is that?

A loud sigh came from the music room. “Fine, fine- but c’mon let’s go this way- I know how to get free snacks from the snack machines-”

Luke and Reggie exchanged a look- that was a trick they had taught Alex a few years back. Was this the hang-out session he had planned that night with the skater-boy he had told them about?

Their steps faded away and Reggie and Luke held their breath out of stress before breaking out into giggles.

“ _ I think we just witnessed Alex flirting _ ,” Luke whispered.

“ _ Somehow I’m not surprised he did… that _ ,” Reggie replied between remnant giggles. They stared at each other for a while more before Reggie tilted his head towards the door.

“ _ We should-” _

_ “Yeah we uh- we should _ -” Luke stumbled over his words as Reggie leaned forward and kissed his cheek. He cleared his throat and pushed the doors open. “We- we should go.”

Reggie smiled at him and they climbed out of the cabinet, bass intact and phase three of the plan completed.

They hurried out of the school, the same way they had come in, and made a beeline for the studio.

-

**Saturday, June 17, 1993 (1:42 AM)**

Once they made it to their studio, they both let out a sigh of relief, Reggie making a beeline for the couch.

“Holy fuck dude,” Luke said, falling down next to Reggie and swinging an arm over his eyes. “We almost got caught. By someone else who  _ clearly _ wasn’t meant to be there.”

Reggie hummed. “Someone? That was  _ clearly _ Alex, no doubt there.” Luke snickered.

“I can’t believe he thought getting  _ snacks _ was a romantic thing to do.” 

“I  _ know _ right?” Reggie started carding his fingers through Luke’s messy hair. They spent a while like that, Luke’s head in Reggie’s lap, one of Reggie's hands through his hair and the other, which had moved down the couch to reach Luke’s, intertwined with the lead singer’s own. The peaceful silence was broken when Reggie broke out into laughter, much to Luke’s displeasure as the hand in his hair left with it.

Luke turned to his friend with a confused look. Once his laughter had died down Luke shook his head.

“What's so funny?” Reggie tilted his head and looked at Luke upside down.

“You  _ kissed _ me. In a  _ closet _ .” Reggie held his stare for a few more seconds before bursting out laughing again, at which Luke smiled.

“Yeah,” he smile grew wider, and curiously tilted his head. “I did do that.”

Reggie tilted his head in the same manner, an easy smile on his face. His cheeks were tinted a rosy pink which made Luke think about how pretty he looked; and, goddamnit, it made Luke blush in his own right.

“Aw, you’re  _ blushing _ !” 

“I am  _ not _ Reggie I am just-”

“Flustered!” Luke groaned in frustration and resigned to hearing Reggie’s soft giggling with an arm thrown over his eyes again.

**Saturday, June 17, 1993 (15:36 PM)**

“Are you guys  _ kidding _ me?” Alex exclaimed. “You could’ve told me! I could’ve asked my parents to buy you a bass! Why the fuck would you go through that?”

_ Other than being complete idiots, that's why,  _ sat in the air, unsaid but understood by all parties involved.

“Your parents would’ve never agreed to that, no matter how rich they are,” Reggie said, fiddling with the strings on the (stolen) bass in question. Alex considered his two friends (his parents did not, in fact, like them. They thought they were  _ bad _ influences, for reasons unknown to him) and titled his head, a disappointed expression on his face.

“Look Alex,” Luke said, raising his hands in the air in surrender. “What’s done is done, but at least we can continue practicing now.”

Reggie smiled sheepishly at Luke’s side, holding up the bass that was in his hands as if presenting the evidence of the crime to their friend.

Alex looked at it, a pained expression on his face, before sighing and shaking his head. “Fine,” he walked over to the couch picking up his drumsticks. “You’re lucky I was out yesterday.”

“Oh yeah,” Luke said, nonchalantly. “How’d your date with skater-boy go?”

Alex whipped around with an inhuman velocity. “It was  _ not _ a date! I was just out with this guy I met and we went around town, well kinda and we-” Reggie tilted his head, an eyebrow raised and an accusing expression on his face. The drummer sputtered in embarrassment. “It was  _ not _ a date, I don’t care what you guys say.”

“Sure Alex,” Luke said, turning back to his notebook. “ _ Sure _ .”

“And what do  _ you _ know anyway? It’s not like you were there-” Alex stopped, mid-hand-gesture. He and Luke stared at each other for what felt like far too much time until Alex sat down and placed his head into his hands. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

**Monday, June 19, 1993 (8:04 AM)**

The following Monday, the three bandmates walked into their first-period class, not expecting to have their names called over the intercom.

Life is surprising, however, and Luke and Reggie found themselves walking into Principal Miller’s office at eight in the morning.

Reggie seemed to be nervous, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. Luke leaned into his side, giving his hand a supportive squeeze. He was not looking forward to this.

And, to be fair, Principal Miller was not excited to see them either.

“Mr. Patterson, Mr. D’Amico, please, come in,” the principal waved the two teenagers into his office, a tired expression on his face. “Do you know why you’re here?”

Luke tilted his head and looked off to the side. Reggie shook his head despite very  _ well _ knowing why he was there.

“There was a bass missing this morning- more specifically the bass  _ you’ve _ been using for music lessons, Mr. D’amico.” Principal Miller tried to look him in the eyes, but Reggie seemed very interested in his shoes at the moment.

“Knowing your situation at home I’m wouldn’t be surprised if-” Reggie cleared his throat much louder than needed. Principal Miller nodded.

“We’re sorry sir,” Reggie spoke up, glancing at his friend by his side. “But we- we didn’t have much of a choice and, well, it’s not like anyone else would’ve used the bass anyway and-”

Principal Miller shook his head. “Reginald… we would’ve given it to you anyway. Your teacher,” he sighed. “Ms. Corum came to talk with me some time ago, knowing the music program would be closing soon. We were going to give the instruments away but she insisted you keep the bass.”

Reggie stared, and stared and stared until Luke cleared his throat and elbowed him in the side.

He broke out of his trance and rushed forward to hug Principal Miller over the desk. Miller patted his back awkwardly as Luke looked away sheepishly.

Reggie pulled back, basic jumping out of excitement. “Thank you thank you _thank_ _you,_ Principal Miller!”

“Don’t thank me, Mr. D’amico, it was all Ms. Corum,” the principal said, but he doubted the boy heard him in his excitement. “Now go, back to class.”

The two boys thanked him again and turned around, and Principal Miller sighed as the two boys walked out of his office whooping and cheering.

(later they’d wonder if the school was even allowed to do that. They would later decide that it didn’t matter, as long as they had their band.)

(and as long as Luke could continue kissing Reggie)

(which he found, going on, to be one of his favorite things. More so than stealing basses.)


End file.
